The present invention generally pertains to medical apparatus and is particularly directed to apparatus for supporting a person's head in a selected position.
Such an apparatus is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,969,366 to Joan Reddick. The apparatus is a head support of unitary construction that includes a flexible shaft that will maintain its shape when reconfigured for enabling a person's head to be supported in a selected position; a chinrest attached to one end of the shaft; and a support base attached to the other end of the shaft. The shaft transfers the weight of a person's head to the support base when the support base has been placed upon the person's chest.
In the preferred embodiment, the flexible shaft, the chinrest and the support base are made of a flexible thermoplastic elastomer. The chinrest and the support base are attached to the shaft by virtue of the extrusion of liquid plastic. At the point of contiguity with the shaft the chin rest can be bent slightly up and down.
The head support described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,969,366 enables a patient's head to be supported in a selected position in which the patient's airway remains open while the patient is anesthetized, so that someone does not have to manually support the patient's lower jaw to assure that the airway remains open throughout a medical procedure that is being performed on the anesthetized patient.